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Do You Believe In The Power Of Coincidence?

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Today the BU household had fun as we tried valiantly to explain the probability theory of correlation to a sibling…ouch! The Harrison College and Queen College Alumni who grace BU with their presence would no doubt have had a field day if they were able to transform to a fly on the greenheart. It was fun and the experience afforded some of us to jump-start areas of the ‘Grey matter’ which had shriveling from non use.

After what was a rewarding experience it triggered an observation by the matriarch of the BU household.

Leading up to the last general election John Public used the call in programs to speculate on the many issue, and they were many. The moderators certainly were challenged as they struggled to appear balanced in their on-air views. Some of the moderators seem to revel in the moment while others appeared to be out of their depth. Some we even noticed disappeared from the call-in shows in the final lead up to the election.

The observation which the BU matriarch made and which surprised us was the following:

  • Minister Maxine McClean was a former moderator
  • Dr. Don Marshall is Chairman of the Sanitation Service Authority is/was a moderator
  • Dr. Akentoolove Corbin is Deputy Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is/was a moderator
  • Tony Marshall is rumoured to be in line for an ambassadorial call up. What is fact is that he currently sits on CLICO Board of Directors which is chaired by Leroy Parris (close friend and confidant of Prime Minister David Thompson). In any event he is known to be aligned to the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

We can debate whether the moderators named collectively had any influence in shaping public opinion. Some of the BU household were of the opinion that the Democratic Labour Party may have trumped the Barbados Labour Party by having DLP sympathizers strategically positioned on the most popular radio spots. Whether by accident or design it would not have caused any harm to the DLP.

Interesting…, amazing how the mind of a female works!

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21 responses to “Do You Believe In The Power Of Coincidence?”

  1. The scout Avatar
    The scout

    I was thinking the same thing too. I think it was by design. Some moderators though were very bias in their comments; maybe it was DLP’s politics of inclusion. If so, it worked. Where in all this would we place Rev Massiah?

  2. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    INTERESTING ANALYSIS BU

  3. Paradox Avatar
    Paradox

    It is not that often I listen to the call-in-programme.Those times I’ve listened, I can only recall one mentioned name above as a moderator.
    Most of the time I find the programme a ‘turn-off’.

    More and more people are avoiding the local ‘media’ and turning to the International media.
    Barbados needs true journalists, to report the facts. I am sorry this is lacking in both print and news media in Barbados.
    Bias reporting can be said for the International media too, but when it is observed, that journalist makes news himself. In Barbados, I am not so sure.

  4. Bimbro Avatar
    Bimbro

    Some of the moderators seem to revel in the moment while others appeared to be out of their depth. Some we even noticed disappeared from the call-in shows in the final lead up to the election.

    ****************

    The ‘moderators’ exhibit the features of most aspects of Barbadian life, i.e. one of incompetence and or irresponsibleness. Nothing about their behaviour has surprised me! 🙂

  5. Bimbro Avatar
    Bimbro

    Dave, I don’t have much time for probability-theory but I’m reluctantly, prepared to conjecture that I won’t make it to becoming primeminister of Barbados! Not because I have n’t the talent for the position but because Barbadians don’t like to hear de trufe!! 🙂

  6. me Avatar
    me

    Peter Wickham although claiming to be a politcal scientist funtioned more as a DLP pollster ( in the american vernacular).

  7. Ian Bourne Avatar
    Ian Bourne

    I have no recollection of Don Marshall as a Moderator? However –

    SSA RIFT
    Published on: 6/22/08.

    by TREVOR YEARWOOD

    THE NEW BOARD at the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) has asked acting general manager Stanton Alleyne to resign by tomorrow.

    But the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) has given notice that the board will have a fight on its hand if Alleyne is forced to go.

    News of the crisis came when the NUPW met with close to 150 SSA workers at its Dalkeith Road, St Michael headquarters yesterday morning.

    NUPW general secretary Denis Clarke accused the board of “going on a witch-hunt” and warned that the union “will fight to our last drop of blood”.

    Clarke charged that the new SSA board had apparently “come into office with the intention of getting rid of Mr Alleyne” and had been delving into “every little project” with which he had been involved, seeking to find a trace of wrongdoing.

    He said Alleyne had “given his all” to the SSA over several years and should not be treated this way.

    Neither Clarke nor chairman of the board, Dr Don Marshall, would state the grounds on which Alleyne was being asked to resign.

    But on the telephone from Britain, Marshall told the SUNDAY SUN that the board had “a compelling case” against Alleyne.

    Board’s mission

    He dismissed the union’s “witch-hunting” charge, saying: “The board is . . . on a mission to raise the value, profile and status of the SSA.”

    Marshall said the board could have taken a different route, but had decided to “proceed with compassion” by having a meeting with Alleyne and asking him to decide on his future by Monday.

    Alleyne, in turn, said in an interview that the resignation call had come as a surprise because in his 12 years’ holding a managerial position he had resolved a number of the nagging problems besetting the institution.

    He listed among them, not enough functioning trucks, a shortage of spare parts and vehicle routing and garbage-collection difficulties.

    “They [the board] found a Sanitation Service Authority that has been running smoothly, but they have been checking and checking and checking since being sworn in on February 15,” he told the SUNDAY SUN.

    He did not give details of what the board was checking for.

    Marshall questioned Alleyne’s claim of things running smoothly at the SSA, saying: “We have had too many long years of neglect … in relation to the workers’ health, safety and amenities at their disposal – things like a decent lunch room and change room.”

    Meantime, Clarke is supporting a call by SSA workers for the board to resign. And, SSA workers who attended yesterday’s meeting are calling for industrial action if Alleyne is sacked tomorrow.

    Well Ian if the Don Marshall referred to in the article is the lecturer at the UWI then he is/was a moderator.

    David

  8. David Avatar
    David

    me we are not prepared to touch Peter Wickham with our brush…yet. We do agree however that many of his public comments may have been interpreted as pro-DLP. The difficulty is whether is comments contributed to shaping public opinion or whether the data from his research stood on its own as representing public opinion.

  9. The People's Democratic Congress Avatar
    The People’s Democratic Congress

    We have said it already and we will keep saying on here and in other fora that this time is RIGHT TIME – now at this juncture – for us – voters – in this country TO STOP electing BLP and DLP Governments of this country, and to seriously help the PDC, and by extension the body politic, move forward towards achievement of the objective of having Coalitional Government for this country, whereby parties, non-party political groups and independent non-party political figures will vie for a number of pre-determined positions for competing parties, competing non-party political groups and contestng independent non-party figures, within the Cabinet of the country and whereby as a result of their being selected on the basis of the “will of the voters” it will be seen that they will eventually constitute the entire Cabinet of the country.

    However, to become selected to such worthy Cabinet positions, shall, et al, before involve a fundamental change – and for the better – in the electoral system of the country, from the first past the post electoral system to a proportional representational one, and shall by extension mean that the Cabinet of Barbados and the political constitutional development of the country will move onto a very historic stage, whereby the Cabinet of Barbados shall for the first time become duly and rightly elected by the Voters in the country – quite an expression of a truly sovereign people of a country like Barbados- and thus, no longer being so-called appointed by the sinecurial Queen of the United Kingdom.

    In the first instance of that proposition, the President and the Vice-President of such a Cabinet, and by extension of Barbados, shall become elected by the newly elected victorious members of this Cabinet, and in the second and later instance, such a President and a Vice-President – whether chosen by the voters from the party, the non-party political or from the independent non-partisan categories – shall become elected on a simple majority basis by the said voters across the country.

    Very importantly, two essential things about this form of Coalitional Government for Barbados will be:

    1) that it will – in the context of the first past the post electoral system being replaced by the relevant proportional representational system -allow voters in Barbados to democratically select from a wider pool of – perhaps – better generic talents, skills sets, and attitudes among competing candidates, when contrasted with what we see emerge now – and which shall be a vast improvement away from voters in Barbados historically having to select from an unreasonably narrow, low and limited number of electoral political offerings mainly coming from the two old, archaic and progressively and intellectually BANKRUPT parties BLP and DLP; and,

    2) that there will be some specific secretarial (formerly ministerial) portfolios, with each of them assigned by a new constitutional order to the party, non-party political and independent non-partisan categories. For instance, the Secretary of Finance shall go to one of the victorious independent non-partisan figures (those victorious members comprising this segment of the Cabinet shall agree as to who the person will be that will perform this role), and the Division of Attorney General will go to the agreed person from the non-party political grouping, and the Division of Education will go to the agreed person from the party category. Also, the President (or in the case of the Vice-President deputizing for the President ) shall NOT have the POWER and AUTHORITY to appoint or disappoint anybody from the Cabinet, only to assign/reassign members to or disassign members from those other areas or Divisions of the Cabinet of government that the new constitution of Barbados will NOT expressly provide for at that juncture.

    For further details on an Elected Coalitional Cabinet for Barbados and on the creation of a system of Cabinet adjuncts (assistants) for our country, see our Pre-election Manifesto 2006 @ http://www.somassfreedem.org.

    Finally, we believe that persons like Dr. Don Marshall, Mr. Akentoolove Corbin, Mr. Tony Marshall, Mr. Clyde Mascoll, Mr. Hamilton Lashley (and once upon a time too Mr. David Commissiong ) – who would appear to be so independently non-partisan in many of their public utterances and statements – would NOT now in the same breadth appear to be so partisan still, given that some persons in Barbados are of the view that they (obviously minus Mr. Commissiong now) are still too closely connected in whatever ways with these increasingly failed DLP/BLP political organizations. For, these persons and others like them would ever be among the prime beneficiaries of this kind of people’s centered progressive system of Government that is to be put in place by PDC, and which, let us say, PDC were at the helm of the government today, would clearly be being implemented all like now. For, any political system like Barbados that allows for claims by some of its constituent elements to be made as to how substantial it is “politically developing” – which is a myth – must logically therefore provide for a mechanism whereby many citizens of Barbados who really do not wish to be part of the party or group political culture of a country, can yet properly avoid doing so but at the same time can better still in their own rights make significant contributions to the further development of this country, without having to go into the very cannibalistic and viteraputive natures of these party cultures.

    Indeed, we must act NOW MORE AND MORE to save our country from becoming worse off as a result of the backwardisms of the party, as that primarily this country belong to we AND NOT any damn party!!!

    PDC

  10. Bimbro Avatar
    Bimbro

    Dave, does ignoring me confirm my comments, then?

  11. ROBOT Avatar
    ROBOT

    I am surprised at Dr. Don Marshall
    and Maxine McClean

    Both of them had indicated that they were non partisan and I believe them.

    Oh it seems that I was fooled even though I would give them the benefit of the doubt and probably assumed that they were recruited within recent times

  12. Negroman Avatar
    Negroman

    I do not think it was a coincidence that the moderators mentioned are aligned with the ruling DLP Government.They were stategically placed.
    Interestingly other ethnic groups are strategically putting themselves in key postions in Barbados today.Analyse many of the Boards and and you will see people of other ethnic origins are in ome key positions I do not think it coincidence.
    My fellow bloggers observe.

  13. JC Avatar
    JC

    To answer your question scout, he is the only true dem that has had the guts to tell the DLP that as usual they are not checking for their own.

    A little birdie told me that the BLP stalwart George Brathwaite gone way to do some studying and guess who sent him. ‘yours truly’ the present government (correct me if I am wrong).

    I know for a fact that a lot of people who getting through are not DLP people but BLP! The higher the monkey climbs the more he shows his tail. Well well well, looka my party that i woulda eat ya raw for!.

  14. Justice Avatar
    Justice

    Have you people heard Colin Spencer’s latest?

  15. Asiba-The Buffalo Soldier-still 2 much FAT on the road Avatar
    Asiba-The Buffalo Soldier-still 2 much FAT on the road

    No Justice
    I have not heard Colin Spencer’s latest

    Tell me about it or tell me where I can hear it online before I go to the tent on Thursday night at Tims on the highway.-

    I performed with Colin in House of Soca so I am interested in his repertoire

  16. Justice Avatar
    Justice

    Don’t think that it is online , ATBS-S2mfotr, but he is telling the Dems that they need to get rid of some B’s still in state positions….and he is calling names!

  17. Tony Hall Avatar
    Tony Hall

    Tell me who in Barbados is not partisan. They might try to hide it but human nature dictates otherwise.

  18. JC Avatar
    JC

    I have heard C. Spencer and it TIGHT! That is the truth. Check for your own. that is why I am so strongly opposed to this illegal immigrant problem. We put them there. check for your own.

  19. George 'the BLP stalwart' Avatar
    George ‘the BLP stalwart’

    Birdies tell lies or sing different tunes depending on the time of day, season, or even climatic conditions. Your birdie may ot be so reliable!

  20. JC Avatar
    JC

    Your still alive! hmmmmm

  21. George 'the BLP stalwart' Avatar
    George ‘the BLP stalwart’

    Indeed, JC. I am well aware of the value that says ‘a birdie in the hand is worth 2 in the bush’. Enough said, since your birdie was so very unreliable.

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